Documents, first reported in the Daily Mail, taken from bin Laden’s compound by US forces on May 2, have proved a 'treasure' to US and Allied intelligence and military analysts and operatives.One series of documents oulined a plot, more of a wish, by bin Laden to kill President Obama and key military officials in the US by attacking their aircraft. bin Laden had long thought he was able to effect American elections and had aired a series of videos tapes at key junctures in past US elections since 2001. This time there is evidence that he believed that he could lead the US into a 'crisis' by killing President Obama and having a "totally unprepared Vice President Biden take over the presidency." Before his death, bin Laden commanded his network of special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Obama and Gen. David H. Petraeus. The man bin Laden hoped would carry out the attacks on Obama and Petraeus was the Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri. “Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work,” bin Laden wrote to his top lieutenant, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. Because of information in the captured documents, a month after bin Laden’s death, Kashmiri was killed in a US drone attack.

A Washington Post writer, was given an exclusive look at some of the captured documents by a senior administration official. The documents are being declassified and will be made available to the public in their original Arabic texts with translations provided. Although bin Laden may have lacked the necessary weaponry to shoot down any US aircraft at the time, it is a disturbing reminder that even when he was in hiding, bin Laden still dreamed of pulling off another spectacular terror attack against the United States. And reminding all Americans about the sad state of our border control, bin Laden urged his top lieutenant Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to focus “every effort that could be spent on attacks in America,” instead of operations within Muslim nations. “Ask the brothers in all regions who can operate in the US or who live there, or for whom it should be easy for them to travel there.” There is little evidence that these plots could have materialised. “The organization lacks the ability to plan, organize and execute complex, catastrophic attacks, but the threat persists,” says a senior administration analyst who reviewed the documents. In the end bin Laden had become trapped in an isolated compound, knowing that his organization had been ruined by killing too many fellow Muslims in its jihad against America.